Strategic Priorities for Software Engineering Leaders

Explore a rigorous framework for engineering and development leaders designed to help identify and prioritize strategic initiatives.

A prioritization framework to focus on what matters most

The Gartner 2025 CIO Agenda report found 50% of global CIOs report their top priority for 2025 is building software and delivering apps that are integrated, innovative and modern. 

Software engineering and development leaders can use the proprietary Gartner Priorities Navigator™ tool to zero-in on initiatives that are most critical to their success as leaders of enterprisewide objectives.

Explore each topic to dive deeper into selected strategic initiatives. Whether you’re assessing, building or modernizing your software organization, this Priorities Navigator points you toward the insight, guidance and tools that can help you hit the ground running and drive successful initiatives that have a significant business impact.

Build compelling business cases by effectively demonstrating ROI, considering value metrics and cost analyis while budgeting to deliver product roadmaps.

 

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Build and Deliver Digital Products That Drive Business Results

 

Six Value Stories to Communicate the Business Value of Software Engineering

Advance your agile journey by addressing challenges with product planning, scaling methodologies, SAFe, Scrum, Kanban, Lean and team topologies while measuring success.

 

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For Agile Software Development, Core Skills and Continuous Learning Are Key

Build your organization the right way to drive impact and business value by exploring research and toolkits on topics such as resource budgeting, cross-functional teams, offshoring, outsourcing, operational efficency and organization culture.

 

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Software Engineering Effectiveness Diagnostic

 

How to Lead High-Performing Software Engineering Teams

Create a better experience for your teams by optimizing your strategies for low-code development, internal developer portals, onboarding, collaboration tools, fast flow, automation, cloud development environments.

 

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Developer Experience Assessment

 

The State of Developer Experience Initiatives: Benchmarking Data From the Field

Deliver faster, better software by focusing on activities around staffing and hiring, insourcing, self-service learning, learning platforms, skills prioritization and evaluation, productivity metrics, and interview guidelines to hire and retain the right talent.

 

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How to Attract Develop and Retain Great Software Engineering Talent

Stay ahead of evolving capabilities by preparing for generative AI coding assistants, intelligent integration and automation, AI-generated test cases, coding agents and AI-driven code modernization.

 

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How Gartner Works With Software Engineering Leaders

 

Gartner Magic Quadrant™ for AI Code Assistants

Ensure your teams are building for the future with the right architecture patterns and practices and driving impact through cloud migration, refactoring, microservices, domain-driven design and reducing technical debt.

 

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Software Engineering Score 

 

Building and Implementing Modern Application Architecture and Technologies